Tag Archives: poetry

Before my mother’s dementia, she wrote poetry. She kept a notebook and pen in her purse so she was always prepared to jot down new lines for poems no matter where she was.

She once told me that when she taught kindergarten, the introduction to poetry curriculum for five-year-olds said the teacher should point to a color and say, “What words rhyme with red?” (Then blue, green, yellow, brown, black, etc.) “But never point to the color orange,” the instructions warned. “It will only confuse them because no word rhymes with orange.”

Molly and I went to visit my mom/her grandma last weekend. We fed her bites of favorite food, told her family stories, sang along to Mom’s favorite children’s songs on Molly’s iPhone, and read poetry to her. Here, in tribute to Mom’s kindergarten poetry advice many years ago, is a poem by author Mary O’Neill that describes the color orange…without trying to find a word that rhymes with it.

WHAT IS ORANGE? By Mary O’Neill ~ Orange is a tiger lily, A carrot, A feather from a parrot. A flame, The wildest color You can name. Orange is a happy day, Saying good-bye In a sunset that That shocks the sky. Orange is brave Orange is bold It’s bittersweet And marigold Orange is zip Orange is dash The brightest stripe In a Roman sash. Orange is an orange, Also a mango. Orange is music of the tango. Orange is the fur Of the fiery fox, It’s The brightest crayon In the box. And in the fall, When the leaves are turning, Orange is the smell Of a bonfire burning…

We take fires very seriously in Colorado after the devastating Waldo Canyon fire in 2012, and the 2013 Black Forest Fire (in picture)

The closing lines of last week’s blog will begin this week’s post: ~ Sing a song of seasons! ~ Something bright in All! ~ Flowers in the summer, ~ Fires in the fall!

Last week’s post focused on poetry, the book of children’s poems I read aloud to Mom as she snuggled under her covers one night. Despite her dementia, Mom responded to the poems, making comments and asking to hear more. It was a surprising, happy time.

This week the focus in on the four words—Fires in the fall!—because of something that happened in Mom’s assisted living that same night…before I read her the poems.

The alarms went off. Everywhere, blaring throughout the entire assisted living facility, both floors, all four hallways. Steel safety doors automatically slammed shut, closing off all the hallways, and the alarms kept screeching. Caregivers ran to evaluate the situation. I stayed with Mom in her apartment, putting on her shoes, helping her into the wheelchair and tucking her afghan around her, waiting to learn which exit I should use to take her to safety. In the hallway outside her apartment, other more mobile and self-reliant seniors peeked out their doors and waited anxiously in the hall to learn what to do next.

Finally the alarms stopped. The steel doors opened, and caregivers hurried back to the apartments. The halls were thick with whiffs of smoke and the pungent smell of burned …popcorn? Really, burned popcorn. Bags of microwave popcorn had been accidentally set on fire in a 90-year-old resident’s apartment microwave when he pushed the wrong numbers. Supposedly, the numbers were way off; the bags caught fire and blew the door open on the microwave.

Mom sat in the wheelchair, watching caregivers hurrying around, running back and forth past our open door. She looked up at me and asked, “Well, are we going to go now?” She was ready for us to take a walk.

The Roman philosopher Seneca said this: “There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.” My mom’s personal philosophy has always been to not suffer or worry in advance, but to stay calmly busy with other things until there was an actual danger that demanded a specific response. She could have been a poster girl for the 1939 British motivational poster in preparation for WWII: “Keep Calm & Carry On.”

Life can be very difficult. Losing the love of your life to Alzheimer’s; losing your own clarity of time and place to dementia; giving up your home and independence; outliving most of your family and friends; thinking you’re getting ready to go for a wheelchair ride, only to have that ended by fire alarms…and you don’t even get any popcorn.

October 9 is Fire Prevention Day. I’m informing you early, so you can prepare in advance to prevent fires…and to make the most of whatever difficulties and disappointments you might face. Keep Calm and Read Poetry. Popcorn is optional, especially if you’re not sure how to use a microwave.

Based on the 1939 British motivational poster in preparation for WWII.

(Public mural painted on the entire brick side of a building in Old Colorado City by talented artist Allen Burton in 1999 and enjoyed by tourists and locals. Photo by Marylin Warner)

Dear Mom,

Until the last decade or so, you were always writing. Maybe you don’t remember, but I do. You wrote articles and essays; you wrote children’s stories and often illustrated them.

And you wrote poetry. All kinds of poetry expressing happy occasions, interesting people you watched, places you and Dad traveled, and narrative poems that told stories. Some of the story poems were about nature and animals, and some were were lessons about life. Your poems covered real life, joys and sorrows.

This summer, Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak Region suffered a horrible fire that began in Waldo Canyon and spread quickly, out of control. It was the state’s most destructive wildfire, destroying nearly 350 homes and killing two people. It’s over now, but the cleanup continues. When we finally had a long-needed rain last week, the Colorado air was crisp and clean for awhile, but the burnt areas were flooded, black soot overflowing across roads and damaging more homes.

Colorado Poet Laureate David Mason wrote a poem about what happened here. I want to share it with you because he is a fellow poet, experiencing life fully, watching and recording, sharing the details through his poetry. When I come to Kansas to visit you this month, I’ll bring some of your poems along and read them to you again. Maybe, if we talk about ideas, we’ll try writing a poem together.

You and I have always loved the last weeks of October. In autumn the trees changed from green to brilliant red and orange, bright yellow and gold. When they were at the peak of their change, we pressed my favorite leaves between books. They became the “accents” in almost every room, spread out on tables and counters and bookshelves until they crumbled apart.

When I was a child, we raked the leaves into huge piles at the curb,jumped into the center, and then raked them back into piles. On chilly evenings, all over the neighborhood the children watched in wide-eyed wonder while adults monitored the crackling, burning leaves. Sunday evenings at our house meant eating popcorn and sliced apples while we watched Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

Things change. Children grow up, move away, and many have their own children and grandchildren now. Spouses and friends are gone, and houses hold new families. The October lawns are still covered in rustling colors, but leaf burning is banned. And on crisp fall evenings you no longer sit at the picture window, a notebook open on your lap as you pen poems and stories about children jumping in leaves and animals preparing for winter. Your home now is a cozy apartment on the second floor of Presbyterian Village, and your failing memory and poor vision no longer inspire writing ideas.

So during this visit, as the sky darkened outside we turned on all the lights in your living room. You snuggled in your recliner, covered with the fluffy bright green blanket. We shared microwave popcorn and orange slices. I flipped through some of your light verse poetry, reading the titles aloud until you seemed to choose the one titled “Homes.”

The milk cow sleeps in the barn,

A house is home for folks.

The little birds sleep in a nest in a tree;

In the pond the bull-frog croaks.

The milk cow wouldn’t like my bed,

And I couldn’t sleep in a nest.

The bull-frog doesn’t like the barn.

Each one thinks his home is the best.

Mom, that’s your charming poem, “Homes.” You didn’t recognize it as something you had written. As I reread it, you closed your eyes and took a nap. I kept reading, just in case…

Things change, but memories remain, passed from mother to daughter to grandchildren to great-grandchildren. It’s okay if you forget, Mom. I’ll remember for you, and pass the memories on. I promise.